'It's going to be a pretty good team': Vegas GM George McPhee

The Vegas Golden Knights GM went to bed around midnight but found himself up three hours later, so he headed to the team’s office to once more look at the list of players he plans to pick ahead of Wednesday’s expansion draft.

It was more excitement than nervousness.

“I was like, ‘Boing, here we go,’ ” said McPhee, smiling. “Things are falling into place. It’s kind of like going in for a final exam knowing you know it.”

A year ago, when the NHL awarded a franchise to Las Vegas, no one knew what this team would look like. Even three days ago, McPhee admitted the whiteboard in the team’s office was mostly blank.

But on Tuesday afternoon, the roster was more or less set. And according to McPhee, it’s better than anyone could have expected.

The Golden Knights are not going to be the 1993-94 Anaheim Mighty Ducks, when Terry Yake and Bob Corkum were the expansion team’s most notable players. They won’t be the 1992-93 Ottawa Senators, which then-winger Jody Hull described as “a bunch of misfits nobody wanted.”

McPhee isn’t scraping from the bottom of the barrel. Vegas will have star talent.

The NHL, which changed the expansion draft rules, has guaranteed it.

Pittsburgh’s Marc-Andre Fleury could be the team’s No. 1 goalie. Ottawa’s Marc Methot and Minnesota’s Matt Dumba might be the top pairing on defence. And from Nashville’s James Neal to Florida’s Jonathan Marchessault, the Golden Knights should have more than enough scoring options to make watching their games enjoyable.

Then again, who knows?

Things are not 100% yet finalized, but McPhee, said he is happy with where things are heading. The team unveiled its jersey on Tuesday. And on Wednesday, we’ll see which players will be wearing them.

“There’s going to be some uncertainty. But I think we actually planned for everything,” said McPhee. “I think it’s going to be a pretty good team. We’re happy that we’ve got a lot of defencemen, we’ve got really good goaltending, we’ve got a lot of centres and we’ve got scoring on the wings. We should have good speed. So it’s going to be a good team.

“There are going to be some guys that we hope are going to be core players for us for a long time.”

There will be some last-minute trades, some more side deals for the future, and because the Golden Knights have to choose one player from each team, “throwaway picks.”

When asked if he had completed half a dozen transactions, McPhee said “certainly at least that.”

The number is probably closer to a dozen, if not more.

“We’ve tried to talk to every club before we make a selection and different things result from that,” said McPhee, who had planned to speak with Maple Leafs GM Lou Lamoriello and several other general managers once more on Tuesday. “So I certainly haven’t been able to keep track of it. I guess we’ll tally it all up in the end and you guys can tell us how we did.

“I think we’ve done pretty well in all the positions … It’s what we’re trying to accomplish, which is having a competitive club that people are going to enjoy watching play and having the draft picks to be able to draft our way to a contending team.”

THE LONG GOODBYE?

Erik Karlsson is expecting to say goodbye.

With the Ottawa Senators not protecting Marc Methot from Wednesday’s expansion draft, Karlsson said he is preparing for the likelihood that he will lose his longtime linemate to the Vegas Golden Knights.

“It’s obviously not an ideal situation, but it’s something that we knew was going to happen with the expansion draft coming up,” said Karlsson. “We’re probably going to lose someone we don’t want to. Obviously, being a close friend to Meth it’s not something that we would like to see happen.

“I enjoy playing with him. We’re close friends on and off the ice and obviously he wants to be there and I know Ottawa wants to keep him. We’ll see what happens on Wednesday and whether we lose him or not.”

Though Methot was a top-pairing defencemen who logged more than 22 minutes per game this season, Senators GM Pierre Dorion is confident the team has the depth to survive his anticipated loss.

“Whether we lose Marc Methot or anyone else, we know it will be a loss to our organization,” said Dorion. “But we feel we have the depth where we can sustain any loss. We have good young defencemen coming.”